Police officer among five robbery suspects shot dead in Nairobi

Dagoretti OCPD Rashid Mohamed.

A police constable attached to an MP is among five suspected criminals gunned down by officers in two separate robberies in Nairobi.

The officer had not been initially identified until his gun was confirmed to belong to the police service.

According to police, the suspects were aged between 19 and 25.

The first shooting happened yesterday at about 2.30am outside a bar in Kangemi where a gang of five had raided M-Club and attempted to rob patrons of their valuables.

Police said an alarm was raised from the bar and a gunshot heard from the same direction before they got there.

Dagoretti OCPD Rashid Mohamed said the gang had stolen cash and valuables from some patrons and was escaping when police confronted them.

The officers shot three suspected gangsters, including the officer who was in civilian clothes. Two others escaped.

"Some of the valuables that had been stolen from patrons were recovered from the suspects together with a Ceska pistol that had 11 bullets," said Mr Mohamed.

He added that a spent cartridge, fired from the suspects' weapon, had been recovered at the scene. The weapon was later confirmed to belong to the police.

Mohamed said they suspect the men were behind a wave of attacks reported in the area.

Two other suspects were killed in Mowlem during a botched robbery. Police said the men were part of a gang that had been attacking and robbing motorists and pedestrians at a railway crossing.

STALLED CAR

According to officers and witnesses, a motorist whose car had stalled on the road was attacked but he managed to drive off and alert police manning a roadblock near there.

"The officers rushed there and found the men busy attacking and robbing residents, prompting a shooting that saw two killed. A homemade gun was found on them," said police. The bodies were taken to a mortuary.

Elsewhere, in Nairobi's Garden estate, police are holding two suspects who were locked inside a house they had broken into.

The owner of the house, an Italian national, pressed an automatic lock of a room where the gang was stealing.

According to police, a gang of five had raided the home and broken in, ready to steal valuables.

The owner, who was in a different room, pressed emergency locks and an alarm, locking two of them inside as the others escaped.

When they were arrested, they claimed to be taxi drivers hired by the two men who escaped. But police held them for questioning.